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In Memory of Amos Vogel 1921-2012

SCMS notes with sadness the passing of Amos
Vogel, a key figure in film education and exhibition in the United States. Vogel was co-founder
of the New York Film Festival, creator of the influential avant-garde film club
Cinema 16, and a pedagogue who taught film at the University of Pennsylvania,
Harvard, The New School, and NYU, among other institutions. Deeply influential
in the promotion of film culture, he championed/programmed the work of
directors including Roman Polanski, John Cassavetes, Jacques Rivette, Maya
Deren, and Kenneth Anger. Throughout his long career Vogel celebrated
convention-breaking cinema, crusaded against censorship, and advocated for
representational innovation. His activities as a proponent for a robust,
international, and humane film culture were wide ranging, though he is best
known to scholars for his 1974 book Film
As A Subversive Art.

Amos Vogel was a lifetime member of SCMS
and a recipient of the Honorary Membership Award (now known as the
Distinguished Career Achievement Award).
His active involvement in the Society of Cinematologists, the
predecessor to what we know today as SCMS, included membership on the Council 1966-1969
and service on the Nominating Committee 1974-1975.

Vogel’s exemplary commitment to the
furthering of film education and his impact on film culture constitute
important and valued legacies. He will be remembered for his manifold
contributions to the thoughtful reflection about and appreciation of cinema.